New Year’s as a Holy Day
In writing this piece I want first
of all to convey that I do not write this to be argumentative. We live in a
diverse world, and our world within the Christian faith is full of diversity. I
don’t imagine myself to be perfect, nor do I expect anyone else to be perfect.
Christians like families live in houses they can call home. Our houses usually
have flaws, but we are happy for everyone who has shelter over their head and a
place to call home. I look at the Christian life in a similar way. I have
Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Charismatic friends. I have found among
such a variety of friends many people who love Christ whether we agree or not
in all the details. I will not try to argue you out of your homes, but I hope
to encourage each of you in some way to love and value Christ all the more.
I have found what seems likely to be
my earthly home within Anglicanism. You may have a different home but you might
be able to understand why Anglicanism became my home. Before I became a
Christian, the poetry of John Donne stunned me. He wrote a poem telling death
not to be proud. He informed death that death itself would die. I thought, as I
read Donne’s poem that he was likely crazy. I also quietly thought that maybe
he knew something I didn’t know. I was fascinated by his poems on repentance,
his meditation on the bell that tolls softly. I think Donne prepared the way
for my feeling the growing need for a Savior, a mediator, a guide to bring me
to God. Later after I became a Christian one of the first books to inspire
passion in me as a Christ follower was J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. Later
in a mid-life crisis, where I began to realize my Christian life was not human
enough. I found a part of the answer in C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves. All
these writers were Anglicans. I guess that is part of why the time came when I
felt at home in the Anglican expression of the Christian faith. Wherever you
have found your home in the faith, I imagine there is a story of how God drew
you to that place. Whether our homes here on earth change in the future or not,
we know our Redeemer lives and he is building a dwelling place that will be the
home we have always been seeking.
In my church, we follow the Church
calendar that has been around from the times of the early Church. For some of
you the calendar must seem like an innovation to be avoided. For others, you
might wonder how Christians would live out the faith without the seasons you
have known since you were young or became a Christian where the Christian
calendar was a given. I hope for each of you how I see a connection between
Christmas and New Year’s Day will make sense and be encouraging to you in
keeping the faith.
I don’t know many people who would
be dogmatic concerning whether or not Jesus was born on December 25. We
probably celebrate Christ’s birth in the end of December because He is
considered by Christians as the Light of the World, and as early Christians
moved from the Jewish religious calendar to a Christian one, the Jewish
Festival of Lights (Chanukah) seemed the good time to celebrate Christ’s
entrance into the world as the Light of the World. Since Christ was crucified
during the Passover, His death and resurrection are recognized near the time of
the Passover in the Christian calendar, and as the Holy Spirit was given to the
Church on the Jewish day of Pentecost, that is when the Christian calendar
celebrates that event.
In the traditional Christian
calendar, Christmas is a twelve day season and not just a one day celebration.
That was how the medieval song “the twelve days of Christmas” came into being.
If you follow the logic of the church calendar, New Year’s Day is celebrated on
the eighth day of Christmas. The eighth day of a Jewish boy’s life is the day
of a special event for him, even if he is not old enough to understand what it
means. On the eighth day his mother presents him to the Priest or Rabbi for
circumcision. The event joins together his being given his covenant name, such
as Jesus because he would save his people from their sin; and he is
circumcised, and he is officially made a member of God’s covenant that He made
with the Patriarchs and Israel.
Have you ever thought about the
implications of Jesus being circumcised on the eighth day? God had made
promises to patriarchs to establish his covenant with Israel. He had made
promises to Abraham and his seed. He had made promises to Isaac and his seed,
to Jacob and his seed, and to David and his seed. In Christian explanation of
the promised seed, the promise that bound together all the promises to the
patriarchs was that that each of them involved God’s promise to both the
patriarch and his seed. St. Paul pointed out the singularity of the seed
promised in the covenant. In a Christian understanding all the promises of God’s
covenant involved the expected seed. The promise given to Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and David waited for the coming of the seed for final fulfillment.
The seed was also promised to at
least two women. The promise was offered in relationship to Eve when the
promise was given that the seed of the woman would have his heel bruised and
the Serpent would have his head crushed. The promise seems to have been recited
in substance as Mary agreed to bear the child to be conceived in her. So this
promised seed was a promise made to both Patriarchs and Matriarchs.
`Something special happened on the
eighth day of Christ’s life. As Christ was circumcised he was officially named
Jesus for he would save his people from their sin. In the purpose of God, Jesus
became one with his people in the covenant God made with Israel. He was God
become flesh. He was God taking his place among men to ratify the ancient
covenant no man had been able to fulfill. But He was also man faithfully
keeping the covenant for his fellow brothers and sisters in the covenant. St.
Paul makes what seems at first to be a surprising statement. He says that since
by man came death, so by man also came the resurrection. (I Corinthians 15:21)
In Paul’s perspective it was essential that Jesus in his humanity would face
death and overcome it as a human being. The Apostle Paul always upholds
Christ’s Deity, but our salvation is also the crowning achievement of Christ’s
humanity. He joined us in the weakness of our humanity, yet without sin, and
being found in appearance as a man submitted himself faithfully to his humanity
to the point of death. Then the beauty of what had taken place could be
fulfilled. Death could not hold him for he was without sin. He had become the
Lamb of God by virtue of his union with us and when death grasped him on the
cross it could not hold him under its power. He rose from the dead as a member
of the covenant acting for those believing in the covenant.
There are two things about God’s
plan for our redemption that never cease to amaze me.
First when God created man in His
image, it would seem likely that God was already committed to fill that image
with His own presence, that our image after being broken might be redeemed and
restored.
Secondly when God made his promise
of His covenant with patriarchs and matriarchs, He was seemingly committed to
Jesus becoming the one true seed who would be the one through whom all the
promises of God would be ratified.
On the eighth day of Jesus life, He
was circumcised, named, and enrolled into the covenant that God had made with
Patriarchs and Matriarchs. On this eighth day the old began to be fulfilled and
the new began to be revealed. It was the basis for celebrating a very Happy New
Year.
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